


Dragon Scars

by EriksChampion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2387087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EriksChampion/pseuds/EriksChampion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some connections--however brief--leave scars that can stretch on for thousands of years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ariasune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariasune/gifts).



“You could have knocked.”

“You wouldn’t have answered.”

Ryou shrugged and winced as the spirit materialized at his side. “I’m busy.”

Bakura frowned and leaned over his host’s shoulder, using his finger to stir Ryou’s coffee—which had gone cold several hours earlier. “Busy,” he scoffed. “If you had any conception of the magnitude of the forces disrupting your small mortal world, you wouldn’t be wasting your time—”

“Preparing for my future?” Ryou snatched his textbook away from under Bakura’s scrutiny. “Forgive me for forming a back-up plan for when your plan for world domination inevitably falls through.”

Bakura narrowed his eyes into sharp, dangerous slits. “Inevitably?”

“If the past is any indication.”

“The past.” Bakura pulled on the back of Ryou’s chair, tilting it backwards. “What would you know about that?”

Ryou sighed. It was still far too early in the day for a headache to be coming on, but it seemed that there was no evading it now. Once Bakura got into one of his moods there was no force on Earth that could silence him. Not even death, apparently. He could barrel on like a juggernaut for hours on end, impervious to any interruption or sign of disinterest from his captive audience of one. He was like a leaky faucet that Ryou could never fix. The sound used to terrorize him—had given him nightmares of drowning in a cold, black, endless flood. Now he just wished that he had the number of a good plumber. 

“History is written by the victors—that’s what your people say, isn’t it? Don’t delude yourself that you can learn anything by only studying one side of the past.”

“Didn’t have to study it. I was there. With you. Because of you!”

“But how much of it did you really understand?” He smirked when Ryou’s only response was a vacant stare. “That’s what I thought. You ate up the lies of the Pharaoh and his little friends, didn’t you?” He snorted. “Well, it’s no wonder you don’t understand anything. Perhaps you’d like me to enlighten you?”

Ryou forced the legs of his chair back on the ground. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.” He had had enough of Bakura’s bedtime stories—and the subsequently required therapy—to last a lifetime.

“You would rather wallow in ignorance?”

“If it’s quiet there, then yes. I think it might make for a nice change.”

“You’re making a very foolish choice,” Bakura huffed.

“I’m sure. Now go bother someone else.”

“Unfortunately for us both, there is no one else to bother.”

Ryou sighed. The spirit didn’t speak, but Ryou could hear him pacing behind him, could feel the agitation of his dark mood. He scowled. As if it wasn’t already enough that the spirit treated his body like a time-share condominium—no, that wasn’t nearly enough for him. He insisted on monopolizing Ryou’s attention as well.

“I signed up for today, remember?” Ryou grumbled. “Your turn doesn’t start for three hours.” Ryou was loathe to remind him. When they had first negotiated their schedule, Bakura had insisted on taking possession of Ryou’s body every Saturday night—for what reason Ryou had decided it better not to ask (though he insisted on undergoing regular blood tests.)

“I was bored. Your life is incredibly dull, you know. You should thank me for making it more interesting.”

Ryou rolled his eyes. “I’ll make sure to do that one day.”

“If I don’t do away with you before then.”

Ryou laughed—brittle and cold. “You won’t do that.” He could no longer count the number of times they had repeated this same conversation. “Who would you have to talk to?”  
This seemed to silence him, and Ryou couldn’t help but squirm slightly. He knew that the spirit was lonely, and that loneliness—among other things—had left him warped and tarnished. But the guilt didn’t grip him for long—Bakura’s particular breed of hostile seclusion had a way of seeping out of Ryou’s skin, even when the spirit wasn’t in control—and Ryou was sure that he had lost several friends because of it. The spirit had dug a hole in his soul that was only big enough for the two of them. Them, and their memories—now so deeply intertwined that it was impossible to disentangle them.

Bakura sat on the floor, leaning against Ryou’s desk. “Did I ever tell you about the time I met a girl who looked remarkably like your sister?”

Ryou started. The tip of his pencil snapped. “No…”

Bakura twirled a strand of hair between his fingers. “Oh, how negligent of me. But I supposed I should leave you to your studies—”

Ryou put down his pencil. As if he was going to get any work done now, anyway.

“Tell me.”  
\--  
Bakura had always been hungry in those days—if not for food, then for blood. But the streets and the fields were empty and unforgiving, and he often fed only on the echoes and shadows of what others left behind. The city sat, hot, heavy, and odious on his shoulders—draining him of every cool and calming thought.

Bakura had only seen black in those days.

That had made the girl all the more stunning—had made her existence that much greater a revelation. He had withered before her light.

They had met in the rubble of one of the desecrated temples, standing between shattered idols and shards of charcoal. The air still stung with smoke. He could almost hear the muffled screams, the frenzied footsteps, the cold thud of death overtaking all else.

These massacres were becoming more common. Egypt had sipped blood at Kul Elna, but now its appetite had grown bold and it inhaled souls like oxygen. The villages on the fringes of the empire had been torn apart. The ground that had once nurtured them with waves of golden wheat now sprouted only splintered bone. Even the Nile refused to run, choosing instead to crawl back in the underworld. And the sun never stopped chasing them down, seeing all but the scars it carved into the horizon as it made its triumphant ascent.

Her back had been turned, and for a moment Bakura thought that she might have died where she stood. But her body was too tense to be fueled by anything but the fires of a righteous anger that not even death could obliterate. 

“I thought I was the only one.”

She turned sharply at his voice. Dirty off-white hair, slight shoulders, and large, disarming eyes. In another life she might have been beautiful. 

“So did I.” 

She turned away abruptly, but the encounter seemed to have drained something out of her. She trembled, then fell to her knees, releasing a sob that consumed the sun.

Bakura’s first instinct had been to leave, to let this girl cry herself into dust and ash. But how could he, when with one blistering, inarticulate sound she gave voice to all the demons that festered in his heart?

“Why?” She had asked. Bakura couldn’t fathom who she could be praying to—it wasn’t as if anyone was listening.

“Why—why did you take everything away from me?”

The world no longer turned the way it used to. Their gods has been slaughtered and buried alongside their children. The fist of the Pharaoh had risen from the flood—all but wiping them off the face of the earth.

But for a moment, watching her cry and not knowing whether he should run away or embrace her, Bakura felt that they were two stones on the bottom of the sea, two roots of the same ancient tree that grasped at the center of the earth—immovable. Invulnerable. They had the same pair of eyes, one shared voice, one shared spirit.

Bakura had begun to master Diabound years ago. He felt it stirring inside him now, yearning to be set free.

“Do you want to learn how to harness your anger—how to use it to destroy everyone who has wronged you?”

There had been no need to ask. He had known her answer the moment he had seen her.  
\--  
The birth of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon had knocked the world off its axis. The creature sent rubble flying—one particularly sharp pierce carving a deep gash down Bakura’s cheek. He had savored the blood that dribbled down his chin.

It was the purest, most electrifying light that had ever sprouted from the world’s greatest darkness. It splattered the ground with liquid blue flame and melted the sand into obsidian. Bakura could hardly look without the fear of going blind, didn’t dare stand too close lest the skin melt off his bones.

And yet, he never feared it. Even Kisara had feared it, the first time she brought it forth. The townspeople had feared her forever.

But the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the only light in his charred and hopeless world—its roar the only music he had ever heard. In its presence he could feel himself soar. And on its wings it bore the promise of a world that he could still taste and smell but only half-remember.   
\--  
The shadows on the wall had lengthened then melted into each other—swallowing Ryou’s room in darkness. Bakura was sitting on the bed now, hands resting on his knees.

“I always thought it was a shame,” he said. “That you didn’t find me until she was already gone. She would have been very interesting.”

Ryou bit his lip. “She was. But she wasn’t like that. We were never so…angry.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Bakura turned towards the wall. “Your soul has always been too soft.”

“I thought I wasn’t soft enough.”

Bakura smirked. “For certain purposes, yes.” He paused. “But we are supposed to be a team, aren’t we?”

“That’s debatable.”

Bakura laughed, but the sound didn’t carry the usual bitter flavor. Even after his spirit faded into the darkness his laughter still rung in the air.

And Ryou was finally alone. For the time being.


End file.
